Doc: In baseball, patience is everything

Cincinnati Reds fans cheered their team to a 4-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.(Photo: Jeff Swinger/The Cincinnati Enquirer)Buy Photo

Baseball doesn't request your patience. It takes your patience, puts it on a short leash and drags it through the summer. Baseball gives your patience no choice.

For two weeks, the Reds couldn't hit. For the past four days, they could. There will be times between now and Labor Day when laboring at the plate is what they will do. There will also be times when the ball flies out of GASP – Great American Small Park – as if it's running from the law.

What everyone needs to do is chill and enjoy the six-month cruise aboard The S.S. Big 162. Lots of seats, good views, a good conversation most nights and weekends.

Think about this: In just about 20 hours, the Reds could have lost three times: The end of the game suspended from Monday, the regularly scheduled game Tuesday night. and Wednesday's matinee. Had that occurred, there wouldn't be enough room on the Carew Tower ledges.

Instead, they win two of three, and the sun is shining all the way to Chicago. Where, if history holds, the Reds will filet the Cubbies like a prime rib. Nothin' like a shot-o'-Cubs for what ails ya.

The last two games, the Reds took down Pittsburgh's best starting pitchers. They took out Gerrit Cole in the Arctic chill Tuesday, then wore down Francisco Liriano Wednesday. "There are no must wins in April. But this set a tone for us," Bryan Price noted.

Terrific starting pitching was the huge reason. Aside from Homer Bailey, The Big Five have been highly impressive. Most especially Johnny Cueto. On Wednesday, Cueto was heart surgical.

The Pirates had three hits, and two of them didn't leave the infield. They had one runner reach second base, Andrew McCutchen, who doubled in the fourth. Cueto walked no one. His pitches danced as if on a string attached to his finger.

That followed Mike Leake's carving of the plate corners Tuesday. The Pirates strike out a lot, anyway – they're sixth of 15 in the league – but against Leake and Cueto, their at-bats looked like a high-impact aerobics class. Lots of contorting and wind-milling at air. The one area where patience should be less of an issue is the starting rotation.

Price says he's patient – "being impatient would be outside my character,'' he declared after the game. Yet he wasted no time moving Joey Votto to the No. 2 spot in the lineup (Where he should have been all last year, actually.) To Price, that wasn't a lack of patience; it was a necessity.

"We don't have Shin-Soo Choo leading off,' said Price. "There are some question marks around (Todd) Frazier, (Zack) Cozart and (Devin) Mesoraco, what they can do offensively. Doing what we've done the last four years wasn't going to work with this group."

Votto has responded. In five games hitting second, he has gone 8-for-17 with three homers and seven RBI. Wednesday, he was the direct beneficiary of a BBF – a Blazin' Billy Factor.

With Hamilton at first at two out in the seventh, Liriano seemed distracted enough to make a bad pitch to Votto, who hit it 391 feet into the right field sun deck. "We put some pressure on Liriano,'' said Price. He was "very aware of who was at first base."

Votto is patient, occasionally to a fault.

Jay Bruce is getting there. For years, Bruce has been the metaphor for this team's offense: Entirely streaky and subject to instant change. But even as he has flailed lately – 1 for his last 17 – Bruce has walked eight times in his last six starts. That's significant, for a player who historically has responded to funks by swinging even more.

"Have you noticed that?" difference, Bruce asked me after the game.

Yes. Patience.

As a hitter, patience to work a count. As a pitcher, patience to know you might not be able to pitch to this guy, but you can pitch to the next guy. Patience to see that a slump is just that. You didn't forget how to hit, any more than Hemingway forgot how to write. There might have been days Hemingway believed he'd lost it. Then he'd write a chapter of For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Patience to see the deep woods of The Big 162, and not the stand of pines this week.

In baseball, patience is everything.

"That's what makes baseball so beautiful," Ryan Ludwick said. "Six months, every day. A sport unlike any other sports."

A baseball season is a time-release photograph. After 15 games, the Reds still aren't in focus. In time, they will be. You just have to wait. You can't rush baseball. It's not in its nature.

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Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton heads to third base on a wild pitch in the first inning. Photo is a multiple exposure done in camera.(Photo: The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger)